METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR OFFERING EDUCATIONAL COURSES OVER A NETWORK
A software and/or hardware facility for enabling an institution to construct educational courses that may be delivered over a network is disclosed herein. The facility simplifies the construction of courses by allowing course materials to be reused and tailored on an institution-by-institution basis. Institutions may select an existing course and modify the existing course by adding, deleting, or modifying course content, sequencing, assignments, test materials, gating events, and/or course parameters. Once constructed by an institution, the course may be added to the institution's course catalog for delivery over a network such as the Internet or an intranet. In some embodiments a student is allowed to enroll in and complete a course at their own pace.
An increasing number of universities, colleges, corporations, businesses, individuals and other institutions offer educational courses over a network, such as the Internet or an intranet. The number of people interested in taking a course over a network is also expanding as employers, companies and schools are able to provide training, instruction and education to more than just the traditional student. For example, many individuals are interested in continuing their education on a part or full-time basis while they are working or assuming other responsibilities. Other individuals may have a specific interest and wish to take only a single course regarding that interest. Offering a course over a network generally allows students, employees, or those simply interested in a subject to participate in the course according to their own schedules without being required to physically attend a class. Institutions are therefore able to attract more students and/or better meet the needs of existing students by allowing the students to participate in a course at the students' convenience.
While students and institutions may benefit from courses offered over a network, institutions still face the challenge of creating and managing these courses. As an institution's catalog of courses offered over a network grows and varies, institutions may find themselves spending a greater amount of time building courses from scratch. Additionally, although students may remotely participate in a course, students are often required to adhere to a schedule and proceed through the course according to a predefined regimen. Similar to an in-class environment, institutions and students would therefore benefit from a flexible system that would streamline the construction of courses by institutions and delivery of courses to students.
A software and/or hardware facility is disclosed for enabling an institution to construct educational courses that may be delivered over a network. An institution may be a college, university, educational institution, corporate entity, business, individual or anyone interested in offering educational materials to one or more remote users. Offering educational courses over a network allows students to enroll and participate in a course without physically attending the course. The facility enables courses to be easily constructed by institutions, and course materials to be reused and tailored on an institution-by-institution basis. Institutions may select an existing course and modify the existing course by adding, deleting, or modifying course content, sequencing, assignments, testing materials, gating events, and/or course parameters. Once constructed by an institution, the course may be added to the institution's course catalog for delivery over a network such as the Internet or an intranet. By providing a simple interface that enables institutions to construct courses that reuse existing course materials, an institution may construct many different versions of a course that are each tailored to meet the needs of a different group of students.
In some embodiments a student is allowed to enroll in and complete a course at their own pace. That is, the student may enroll in a course at any time and take as long as necessary to complete the course in order to receive credit. In some embodiments, institutions may restrict certain parameters of the course, such as the starting and ending dates or the duration of the course. Also, in some embodiments an institution may enact gating events to control the progress of the student through the course. For example, students may not be allowed to proceed until completing a quiz or receiving a certain score on a series of assignments. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the disclosed facility provides significant flexibility for institutions and students for learning in a networked environment.
The following description provides specific details for a thorough understanding of, and enabling description for, various embodiments of the technology. One skilled in the art will understand that the technology may be practiced without many of these details. In some instances, well-known structures and functions have not been shown or described in detail to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the description of the embodiments of the technology. It is intended that the terminology used in the description presented below be interpreted in its broadest reasonable manner, even though it is being used in conjunction with a detailed description of certain embodiments of the technology. Although certain terms may be emphasized below, any terminology intended to be interpreted in any restricted manner will be overtly and specifically defined as such in this Detailed Description section.
To deliver courses over the network 110, the facility is comprised of one or more course servers 115 that are connected to a data storage area 125. The facility includes one or more software applications that enable the courses to be constructed, managed, and delivered as disclosed herein. The data storage area 125 includes a number of databases that are maintained by the facility to implement the disclosed functionality, including a course catalog database 120 that maintains a list of courses that are available at each institution utilizing the facility, a course information database 130 that stores information such as lesson content and structure, assignment and testing materials, sequencing information, and/or course parameters (as described in more detail in
The term “database” is used generically herein to indicate a collection of records stored in a computer in a systematic way. While four databases are depicted in the data storage area 125, those skilled in the art will appreciate that a greater or lesser number of databases may be utilized to implement the disclosed facility. The depicted databases are merely for pedagogical purposes.
In the lesson presentation area 203, the facility displays the lesson or sub-lesson materials to a student to enable the student to participate in the course. As depicted in
It will be appreciated that the user interface 200 presented in
Courses such as that depicted in
The facility also displays an outline of the course in the course outline area 315. As depicted in
After selecting a course from the existing course list, at a decision block 415 the facility queries the institution as to whether the course requires modification before making it available to students. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that a course may be modified in a variety of ways, including, but not limited to changing the content (e.g., text, video or audio components) of the lessons and sub-lessons, changing the order of the lessons, adding or omitting testing materials and modifying various parameters associated with the lessons or the course, such as the length of time allowed to complete the course. If the course does not require modification, at a block 420 the facility publishes the course to students by adding the course to the course catalog of the associated institution and making the course available to students of that institution for enrollment.
If the institution indicates that the course requires modification, processing continues to a decision block 425. At decision block 425, the facility queries the institution as to whether lessons need to be added to or deleted from the course. If the institution indicates that lessons need to be added or deleted, at a block 430 the facility provides an interface to the institution that allows the institution to add lessons to a course (e.g., by uploading new lessons to the facility, by copying lessons from existing courses maintained by the facility, etc.) or to delete lessons from a course. After lessons have been added or deleted from a course by the institution, or if no lessons were required to be added or deleted to a course, processing continues to a decision block 435.
At decision block 435 the facility queries the institution as to whether the ordering or sequencing of the lessons needs to be changed in the course. For example, an institution may alter the order in which a student progresses through the lessons in a course. If a change to the lesson order is indicated by the institution, at a block 440 the facility provides an interface to the institution that allows the institution to reorder the lesson blocks in the course by moving lessons in front of or behind other lessons. After the ordering of lessons has been completed by the institution, or if no reordering was required, processing continues to a decision block 445.
At decision block 445, the facility queries the institution as to whether any modification to the lesson content needs to be made in the course. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that all forms of teaching materials may be included in a lesson, including but not limited to text passages, audio segments, video segments, exercises, assignments, tests, quizzes, on-line discussions, etc. If any portion of a lesson or all of a lesson is desired to be modified by the institution, at a block 450 the facility provides an interface that allows all or portions of the lesson content to be added, deleted or modified. Institutions may modify the lesson content by editing the existing content, adding new content by uploading or copying new content or by deleting content. Once the lesson content has been modified by the institution, processing continues to a decision block 455.
At decision block 455, the facility queries the institution as to whether any modification to the course parameters is required. The parameters associated with the course may include a variety of information regarding the course, including but not limited to data regarding whether the course is offered for credit and the number of credits for that course, and whether the course is graded, pass/fail or not graded. The parameters may also include time constraints that may be imposed on students enrolled in the course, such as the pace at which a student must complete a lesson. For example, an institution may require that the student complete the lesson by a specified date or within a specified amount of time, such as one week from beginning the lesson. The institution may also allow the student to complete the lesson as fast or slow as desired, or not to allow the student to complete the lesson faster than a predetermined time. If the institution decides to modify the course parameters, at a block 460 the facility provides an interface that allows all or portions of the course parameters to be specified by the institution.
After the course parameters have been modified, or if no modifications to the course parameters are required, processing continues to a decision block 462. At decision block 462 the facility queries the institution as to whether any modification to pre- and/or post-course requirements is required. Pre- and/or post-course requirements associated with the course may include informational queries that help the institution to better tailor the course to the student's or future students' needs. For example, the pre- and/or post-course requirements may include a demographic survey or an evaluation of the student's expectations or satisfaction regarding the course. The pre- and/or post-course requirements may also include a student assessment, which may help the institution to customize the course according to the student's ability. In some embodiments, the pre- and/or post-course requirements can include directions for validating completion of the course, such as directions to the student for receiving a certificate, obtaining credit from a sponsoring institution, making payment to an institution, or archiving the student's activity regarding the course. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the pre- and/or post-course requirements are not limited to the examples listed, but may include any requirement desired by the institution. If the institution decides to modify the pre- and/or post-course requirements, at a block 464 the facility provides an interface that allows all or part of the pre- and/or post-course requirements to be specified by the institution.
After the pre- and/or post-course requirements have been modified, or if no modifications to the pre- and/or post-course requirements are required, processing continues to a decision block 465. At decision block 465 the facility queries the institution as to whether the course may be approved. If the institution approves the course, at a block 470 the course is stored by the facility as described in more detail in
One of the benefits of allowing an institution to easily modify existing courses to create new courses is that it allows the institution to tailor courses to groups of students. For example, an institution may quickly create three different versions of a course, with one version directed to students taking the course for a credit, another version directed to students taking the course for credit on a pass/fail basis, and still another version directed to students merely auditing the course. By allowing the institution to quickly and easily change the course content, sequencing, and parameters, a greater variety of students may be served.
The gating events section 509 contains one or more gating events that the institution may use to track the progress of students. For example, the record 518 indicates that a quiz 509a and a test 509b must be completed before a student is allowed to progress within a course or between a series of courses. One or more fields (not shown) may be provided in the gating events section 509 to specify the minimum score necessary for each gating event for a student to be considered to have completed the gating event. Other gating events, such as an essay 509n may also be contained in the gating events section 509. The number of gating events for a particular course is specified by the institution, and in some cases, no gating events may be specified for a course.
The course parameters section 512 contains information relating to the structure and various options of the course, such as if the course is offered for credit and how many credits, if it is pass/fail or graded, any time constraints imposed on the course, if the gating events are enabled for the course, or other parameters. For example, the parameters associated with record 518 indicate that the course is offered for credit, that it has three credits, that it is graded, and that gating events have been enabled. Other course parameters may be specified in the course parameters section 512 as well. The attributes section 515 associated with each course record contains any other information relating to a course that might be specified by the institution.
After the course and lesson information has been retrieved, at a block 620 the facility generates an interface to present the lesson to the student. As described above,
In order to give students the greatest flexibility to participate in courses, students are given a number of options about when to take courses, when to switch between courses, and when to switch between lessons in courses. At a decision block 622, the facility allows a student to sign off from the facility at any time and temporarily cease participation in the currently-displayed course. If the student signs off, the status of the student in the currently-displayed course is stored at a block 650. When the student signs back on to the facility, the stored status of the student is retrieved and the student is allowed to continue in the course from where they previously left off.
At a decision block 625, the facility allows the student to switch to another course. If the student indicates a desire to switch to another course, at a block 627 the facility receives an indication from the student of the course into which they would like to switch. At block 627, the facility also stores the current status of the student in the currently-displayed course. The stored status of the student in the currently-displayed course may be used by the facility to allow the student to return to the course in the future and continue in the course from where the student previously left off. At block 615, the facility retrieves the course content associated with the course that the student would like to switch to (as well as any previously-stored status for the course), and processing continues to enable the user to proceed with the newly-selected course.
At a decision block 630, the facility allows the student to switch to another lesson within the currently-displayed course. If the student does not indicate a desire to proceed to another lesson, the student may continue with the present lesson at block 620. If the student indicates a desire to switch lessons, processing continues to a decision block 632. At decision block 632, the facility queries the course information stored in database 130 to determine whether gating events have been enabled. A variety of gating events are available to allow the institution to manage a student's progress through a course. For example, students may be required to complete a quiz or receive a certain score on a series to assignments before being allowed to proceed to another lesson or course. If the gating events have not been enabled by the institution for that course, processing continues to a block 645 where the lesson status is stored by the facility. Storing the lesson status enables the student to return to the lesson in the future and continue in the lesson from where the student previously left off. After storing the lesson status, at block 618 the facility retrieves the new lesson requested by the student. The requested lesson may be the next sequential lesson or it may be a non-sequential lesson of the student's choice.
If gating events have been enabled by the institution for the course presently being viewed by the student, processing continues to a decision block 640. At decision block 640, the facility determines whether the student has satisfied the gating events necessary to allow the student to proceed. For example, if the student has not passed a required quiz associated with a lesson the student will not be allowed to continue to the next lesson. The institution however, may construct the gating events such that a student may attempt to pass the gating event multiple times, thus allowing the student numerous opportunities to continue to the next lesson and through the course at their own pace. Alternatively, the institution may not allow the student to attempt a gating event more than one time or limit the number of times that the student may attempt the gating event in a certain period of time. For example, an institution may limit a student to attempting a quiz only once per day. If the facility indicates that the student has satisfied the gating event, processing continues to block 645 where the lesson status is stored, and then to block 618 where the lesson requested by the student is retrieved by the facility. If the student has not satisfied the gating event, processing returns to block 620 where the student may continue with the present lesson.
While the process 600 is depicted in a linear flow chart, those skilled in the art will appreciate that an interface presented to the student by the facility may allow the student to select various lessons and satisfy the gating events to proceed through a lesson according to the student's own timeframe. Such an interface may include a menu or other control that allows the student to proceed through a lesson according to the lesson content and structure as constructed by the institution. The process 600 is merely intended to illustrate the asynchronous process that a student may use to proceed through a course as constructed by an institution.
From the foregoing, it will be appreciated that specific embodiments of the invention have been described herein for purposes of illustration, but that various modifications may be made without deviating from the spirit and scope of the invention. Accordingly, the invention is not limited except as by the appended claims.
Claims
1. A system for enabling institutions to construct online educational courses and deliver the educational courses to students over a network, the system comprising:
- a data storage area for storing course content, the course content comprising teaching materials and testing materials;
- a mapping module coupled to the data storage area and maintaining an association between a plurality of courses and stored course content associated with each of the plurality of courses;
- an editing module coupled to the mapping module, the editing module enabling an institution to create a new course that is to be offered by the institution by selecting course content from the stored course content, modifying the selected course content, and storing the modified selected course content as a new course in the plurality of courses, wherein the new course is a changed version of an existing course in the plurality of courses; and
- a course delivery module coupled to the mapping module, the course delivery module accessing course content associated with the new course and delivering the course content over a network connection to students enrolled in the new course.
2. The system of claim 1, wherein the editing module further allows the institution to add new course content to the new course.
3. The system of claim 1, wherein the editing module further allows the institution to define one or more course parameters associated with the new course.
4. The system of claim 1, wherein the editing module further allows the institution to create one or more gating events that are associated with the new course.
5. The system of claim 1, wherein at least some of the plurality of courses are divided into a plurality of lessons.
6. The system of claim 5, wherein the editing module further allows the institution to create one or more gating events that are associated with one or more of the plurality of lessons.
7. The system of claim 5, wherein modifying the selected course content involves changing the order one or more of the plurality of lessons.
8. The system of claim 1, wherein modifying selected course content involves changing at least some of the selected course content.
9. The system of claim 1, wherein the course content is selected from the group comprising text, graphics, audio, or video.
10. A method of enabling institutions to construct online educational courses and deliver the educational courses to students over a network, the method comprising:
- receiving a selection from an institution of one of a plurality of stored courses, the plurality of stored courses each containing course content;
- allowing the institution to create a new course that is to be offered by the institution by editing the course content in the selected one of the plurality of stored courses to modify the presentation of the course content;
- storing the modified presentation of the course content as a new course in the plurality of stored courses, wherein the new course is a changed version of the selected one of the plurality of stored courses; and
- delivering the course content associated with the new course over a network connection to students enrolled in the new course.
11. The method of claim 10, further comprising allowing the institution to add new course content to the selected one of the plurality of stored courses when modifying the presentation of the course content.
12. The method of claim 10, further comprising allowing the institution to define one or more course parameters associated with the selected one of the plurality of stored courses when modifying the presentation of the course content.
13. The method of claim 10, further comprising allowing the institution to create one or more gating events that are associated with the selected one of the plurality of stored courses when modifying the presentation of the course content.
14. The method of claim 10, wherein at least some of the plurality of stored courses are divided into a plurality of lessons.
15. The method of claim 14, further comprising allowing the institution to create one or more gating events that are associated with one or more of the plurality of lessons in the selected one of the plurality of stored courses when modifying the presentation of the course content.
16. The system of claim 14, further comprising allowing the institution to change the order of one or more of the plurality of lessons in the selected one of the plurality of stored courses when modifying the presentation of the course content.
17. The method of claim 10, further comprising allowing the institution to modify the course content in the selected one of the plurality of stored courses when modifying the presentation of the course content.
18. The method of claim 1, wherein the course content is selected from the group comprising text, graphics, audio, or video.
19. A system for enabling a student to participate in an educational course over a network at a pace determined by the student, the system comprising:
- a data storage area for storing course content, the course content comprising teaching materials and testing materials;
- a mapping module coupled to the data storage area and maintaining an association between a plurality of courses and stored course content associated with each of the plurality of courses, at least some of the plurality of courses being divided into one or more lessons; and
- a course delivery module coupled to the mapping module, the course delivery module accessing course content associated with a course that is divided into two or more lessons and delivering the course content over a network to a student enrolled in the course, wherein the student is allowed to receive the two or more lessons in any order and there is no end date by which the student is required to complete the delivered course.
20. The system of claim 19, wherein the course may have one or more gating events associated with the course.
21. The system of claim 20, wherein the gating events are associated with the one or more lessons and the student is not allowed to proceed to a next lesson unless the requirements of the gating events associated with a current lesson have been met.
22. The system of claim 20, further comprising a security module that limits access to a course to authorized students.
23. The system of claim 20, wherein the data storage area further stores a course status associated with the course that is delivered to the student, the stored course status maintaining the progress of the student in the course and enabling the student to start and stop the course at the discretion of the student.
24. A system for enabling a student to participate in an educational course over a network at a pace determined by the student, the system comprising:
- a data storage area for storing course content and course parameters, the course content comprising teaching material and testing material, the course parameters comprising a course duration;
- a mapping module coupled to the data storage area and maintaining an association between a plurality of courses and stored course content and course parameters associated with each of the plurality of courses, at least some of the plurality of courses being divided into one or more lessons; and
- a course delivery module coupled to the mapping module, the course delivery module accessing course content and course parameters associated with a course that is divided into two or more lessons and delivering the course content in accordance with the course parameters over a network to a student enrolled in the course, wherein the student is allowed to receive the two or more lessons in any order and the student is required to complete the course within the course duration specified by the course parameters.
25. The system of claim 24, wherein the course duration begins when the course is initially available for delivery over the network.
26. The system of claim 24, wherein the course may have one or more gating events associated with the course.
27. The system of claim 26, wherein the gating events are associated with the one or more lessons and the student is not allowed to proceed to a next lesson unless the requirements of the gating events associated with a current lesson have been met.
28. The system of claim 24, wherein the data storage area further stores a course status associated with the course that is delivered to the student, the stored course status maintaining the progress of the student in the course and enabling the student to start and stop the course at the discretion of the student.
Type: Application
Filed: May 22, 2007
Publication Date: Nov 27, 2008
Applicant: The Riesling Group, Inc. (Woodinville, WA)
Inventors: Gail Rooks Hixon (Woodinville, WA), Keith Michael Faris (Woodinville, WA)
Application Number: 11/751,953
International Classification: G09B 7/00 (20060101);